Part 5 (1/2)
Three police lab technicians were working in the room under the direction of the coroner. Two of them were on their hands and knees beside the bed. One man was dusting the nightstand for fingerprints, although he must have known that he would not find any. This was the work of the Butcher, and the Butcher always wore gloves. The coroner was plotting the trajectory of the blood on the wall in order to establish whether the killer was left-handed or right-handed.
”Where's the body?” Graham asked.
”I'm sorry, but they took it to the morgue ten minutes ago,” Detective Preduski said, as if he felt responsible for some inexcusable breach of manners. Graham wondered if Preduski's entire life was an apologia. The detective was quick to take the blame for everything-and to find fault with himself even when he behaved impeccably. He was a nondescript man with a pale complexion and watery brown eyes. In spite of his appearance and his apparent inferiority complex, he was a highly respected member of the Manhattan homicide detail. More than one of the detective's a.s.sociates had made it clear to Graham that he was working with the best, that Ira Preduski was the top man in the department. ”I held the ambulance as long as I could. You took so much time to get here. Of course I woke you in the dead of night. I shouldn't have done that. And then you probably had to call a cab and wait around for it. I'm so sorry. Now I've probably ruined everything for you. I should have tried to keep the body here just a bit longer. I knew you'd want to see it where it was found.”
”That doesn't matter,” Graham said. ”In a sense, I've already had a firsthand look at her.”
”Of course you have,” Preduski said. ”I saw you on the Prine show earlier.”
”Her eyes were green, weren't they?”
”Just as you said.”
”She was found nude?”
”Yes.”
”Stabbed many times?”
”Yes.”
”With a particularly brutal wound in the throat?”
”That's right.”
”He mutilated her, didn't he?”
”Yes.”
”How?”
”Awful thing,” Preduski said. ”I wish I didn't have to tell you. n.o.body should have to hear it.” Preduski seemed about to wring his hands. ”He cut a plug of flesh out of her stomach. It's almost like a cork, with her navel in the center of it. Terrible.”
Graham closed his eyes and shuddered. ”This ... cork...” He was beginning to perspire. He felt ill. He wasn't receiving a vision, just a strong sense of what had happened, a hunch that was difficult to ignore. ”He put this cork... in her right hand and closed her fingers around it. That's where you found it.”
”Yes.”
The coroner turned away from the blood-spattered wall and stared curiously at Graham.
Don't look at me that way, Graham thought. I don't want to know these things.
He would have been delighted if his clairvoyance had allowed him to predict sharp rises in the stock market rather than isolated pockets of maniacal violence. He would have preferred to see the names of winning horses in races not yet run rather than the names of victims in murders he'd never seen committed.
If he could have wished away his powers, he would have done that long ago. But because that was impossible, he felt as if he had a responsibility to develop and interpret his psychic talent. He believed, perhaps irrationally, that by doing so he was compensating, at least in part, for the cowardice that had overwhelmed him these past five years.
”What do you make of the message he left us?” Preduski asked.
On the wall beside the vanity bench there were lines of poetry printed in blood.
Rintah roars and shakes his fires in the burden'd air; Hungry clouds swag on the deep Hungry clouds swag on the deep
”Have any idea what it means?” Preduski asked.
”I'm afraid not.”
”Recognize the poet?”
”No.”
”Neither do I.” Preduski shook his head sorrowfully. ”I'm not very well educated. I only had one year of college. Couldn't afford it. I read a lot, but there's so much to read. If I were educated, maybe I'd know whose poetry that is. I should know. If the Butcher takes the time to write it down, it's something important to him. It's a lead. What kind of detective am I if I can't follow up a lead as plain as that?” He shook his head again, clearly disgusted with himself. ”Not a good one. Not a very good one.”
”Maybe it's his own poetry,” Graham said.
”The Butcher's?”
”Maybe.”
”A murderous poet? T.S. Eliot with a homicidal urge?”
Graham shrugged.
”No,” Preduski said. ”A man usually commits this sort of crime because it's the only way he can express the rage inside him. Slaughter releases pressures that have built in him. But a poet can express his feelings with words. No. If it were doggerel, perhaps it could be the Butcher's own verse. But this is too smooth, too sensitive, too good. Anyway, it rings a bell. Way back in this thick head of mine, it rings a bell.” Preduski studied the b.l.o.o.d.y message for a moment, then turned and went to the bedroom door. It was standing open; he closed it. ”Then there's this one.” he closed it. ”Then there's this one.”
On the back of the door, five words were printed in the dead woman's blood.
a rope over an abyss
”Has he ever left anything like this before?” Graham asked.
”No. I would have told you if he had. But it's not unusual in this sort of crime. Certain types of psychopaths like to communicate with whoever finds the corpse. Jack the Ripper wrote notes to the police. The Manson family used blood to scrawl one-word messages on the walls. 'A rope over an abyss.' What is he trying to tell us?”
”Is it from the same poem as the other?”
”I haven't the faintest idea.” Preduski sighed, thrust his hands into his pockets. He looked dejected. ”I'm beginning to wonder if I'm ever ever going to catch him.” going to catch him.”
The living room of Edna Mowry's apartment was small but not mean. Indirect lighting bathed everything in a relaxing amber glow. Gold velvet drapes.
Textured light tan burlap-pattern wallpaper. Plush brown carpet. A beige velour sofa and two matching armchairs. A heavy gla.s.s coffee table with bra.s.s legs. Chrome and gla.s.s shelves full of books and statuary. Limited editions of prints by some fine contemporary artists. It was tasteful, cozy and expensive.
At Preduski's request, Graham settled down in one of the armchairs.